Ripple was designed not as currency, nor as consumer-oriented product. Ripple is a real-time payment protocol. Company has issued its own digital coins, but the main Ripple product is peer-to-peer payment network, which predecessor, Ripplepay, was launched in 2004, far before the invention of the blockchain. Ripple company, understanding the difficulties of money transfers, began to look for solution?—?Blockchain was the missing part to make this concept real. XRP tokens weren’t designed to become cryptocurrency the way Bitcoin was. Ripple coins (“the settlement tokens”, as company calls it) are used in banks and financials institutions, when they make transactions. XRP tokens can be transferred real-time across the world instantly and safely, reducing costs associated with international money transfers.